« La trace d’une époque finie dans les mœurs d’une époque nouvelle » : la crise de mémoire dans Le Chevalier des Touches de Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly

• Authors: Patrick Teichmann

Abstracts

EN

In his historical novel Le Chevalier des Touches (1864), Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly paints a sombre picture of the former counterrevolutionary Chouan heroes of Normandy : over the first decades following the French Revolution, the aristocrats lose their ancestral castle and end up living in an anachronistic salon while slowly falling into collective oblivion. Therefore, this article argues that Barbey d’Aurevilly’s novel is concerned with a pressing memory crisis (in the sense of the term coined by Richard Terdiman) which manifests itself in the material sphere. For this purpose, the gradual decay of the nobles’ abodes will be analyzed, from the transformation of their castle to the asylum where the protagonist spends his last days. The examination of these intérieurs allows us to gain extensive insight into Barbey d’Aurevilly’s attachment to the Ancien Régime and his fundamental repudiation of the social changes occasioned by the political developments in 19th-century France.

Keywords

EN

memory crisis; counter-revolution; historical novel; Barbey d’Aurevilly

FR

crise de mémoire; contre - révolution; roman historique; Barbey d’Aurevilly

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Gdański
• Journal: Cahiers ERTA
• Year: 2022
• Issue: 31
• Pages: 10-26

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Patrick Teichmann

• Université de Mayence

• https://orcid.org/0000000284170108

Identifiers

Biblioteka Nauki

20874558